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# RTB (Real-Time Bidding)
- URL: https://www.adlingo.org/glossary/rtb/
- Published: 2025-01-15T09:47:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-01-15T09:47:00.000Z
- Description: An automated auction process where digital advertising inventory is bought and sold on a per-impression basis in real-time.
- Author: Travis Lusk
- Tags: Programmatic, #glossary, #Import 2026-10-27 17:05

The auction mechanism at the core of programmatic. Every time a page loads or a stream begins, an auction runs in milliseconds. Publishers send bid requests. DSPs evaluate them against targeting criteria and bid. The winning bid wins the impression. The whole sequence runs in the time between a user clicking a link and the page rendering. RTB is also a data collection infrastructure. Every bid request carries user signals. How that data gets used beyond the auction is still an active regulatory question.